Makeup Artist Louise Lerman on Becoming One of the Industry’s Most Sought-After Talents

Makeup Artist Louise Lerman can make any woman look like a queen. It’s not just the dewy cheeks, smoky eyes and shimmering smile that conveys that resplendence—it’s the expression on the girl’s face in the photo Louise posts on Instagram. You can tell that what lies on the surface of her skin just amplifies the beauty she already has inside.

Beauty in Judaism is not a negative thing. Our Matriarchs were praised for their appearance. In Egypt, when the men were working hard all day as slaves, the women used mirrors to show off their beauty to their husbands, seducing them and therefore continuing the Jewish nation—no small feat at that time.

Louise is truly an artist. With a toolbox of foundation, blush, lipstick and mascara, she uses the face as her canvas. She employs her talents to make brides and their families look like their prettiest selves, ushering them into this new phase of life feeling like royalty.

Underneath the product, though, is a woman with grit. Ironically, she’s usually bare-faced. “I don’t wear a stitch of makeup,” she says. “I’m a very low-maintenance girl. I’m so removed from it in my own life, but that’s because for me it’s truly about the art and creativity.”

Here, she shares her journey to becoming one of the observant world’s top makeup artists, amassing nearly 15,000 Instagram followers (@makeupbyloulerman) and recently starting her own headband company, Lily by Lou (@lilybylou), which you’re seeing atop heads everywhere.

Nurturing Her Soul

In some ways, becoming a makeup artist was natural for Louise. Growing up in England, her mother worked at the makeup counter at Estee Lauder and her father was a hairdresser who owned a chain of salons. “I kind of had a feeling I would do something artsy, but I had no idea that would be makeup,” she shares.

A creative from the start, she had trouble concentrating in a traditional school environment and couldn’t sit still in class. “I’m dyslexic, so all the odds were against me,” she explains. “No one knew what to do with me—they said I was lazy and a bad student.” 

Instead of getting brought down by the comments, when she finished high school, Louise chose to follow her creative side and landed a spot at a top university course in London to learn more about the art of makeup. In the course, she would get certified in special-effects makeup for movies and theater. “They pretty much produce movie makeup artists, which was incredible,” she explains. 

While she was learning, she lived in a student residence in Golders Green, home to one of London’s observant Jewish communities. There were Judaism classes through the Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE) in the student common area that offered free pizza. Eventually, after a few weeks of just pizza, she ended up staying to learn. “I honestly didn’t care for the classes at the time,” she says. “But what I loved was that I felt like I was part of a religion that accepts you for you. I never felt like I fit in before, but in that environment, I felt like they truly cared about who I was as a person.”

She went on a trip with the organization to Los Angeles. When she returned, she just wanted to get back to that feeling the trip provided. “I didn’t care to be religious at the time,” she explains. “I just wanted that feeling of acceptance. It didn’t matter what school you went to or how much money you had, it just mattered who you were.”

She followed that desire for more to Neve, a seminary in Jerusalem, leaving the makeup course behind. She spent a year there, surviving by working as a cleaning lady at the same time. “My parents said, ‘If you want to do this, you can do it on your own,’” she says. “So, I had no money. I cleaned, folded laundry — I lived very simply.”

After just a year, she decided to spend time in America, where many of her friends from seminary were and lived in Passaic for several months as a boarder with a family. She worked as a nanny while she was there, but before long, missed the feeling she had had in Israel and went back. She was just 19 then.

“This time, I went to EYAHT, Aish’s seminary for women,” she shares. “I stayed there for two-and-a-half years and then lived in Israel an additional five years after that. I worked as a babysitter, a cook, ran trips. I did all these random jobs and was the happiest I had ever been.”

Conquering Anxiety

At a Shabbat table one evening in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof, she met a man who would become her husband. He brought her back to America, and at 26, she got married. At this point of settling down, she decided to go back to makeup as a career. She couldn’t work legally at the time, as she was waiting for her visa, and the career path had always been in the back of her mind. Now, living a new life in New York City, she decided to try it out again.

“I went up to well-connected women on the Upper West Side who I had met through Shabbat meals and offered to do their makeup for free,” she shares. “I would do it for a simcha (special occasion) they had in the hopes that they would tell their friends. They saw that I was good at it and started hiring me for their own family weddings.”

For so many, walking up to a prominent woman in a new community would be daunting, to say the least. For Louise, all the more so. “I have a huge amount of anxiety,” she explains. “But when it comes to my work, my confidence in my ability overrides it. I know how amazing I am at what I do and so I can channel all that nervous energy.”

She does credit anti-anxiety medication with giving her a leg up in conquering it as well, but it’s also sheer grit and perseverance. In America, she had no family and no connections when she arrived. She explains that hustling was her only way. She continued to show off her skills on faces around the city and, eventually, was able to turn it into a real business, starting off charging $50 a face and slowly increasing. Now she gets $250 per person.

“I didn’t think so much about charging more money. It happened naturally,” she explains. “As I started to get more recognition and people saw that I was good, I charged more money by default. I realized all these prominent families were hiring me for their simchas and I just thought, ‘Okay, maybe I’m doing something right.’”

As someone working big jobs, you’d think her nerves would get to her at times. “There’s a fearlessness in me when it comes to my career and passion,” she explains. While other times, she says her anxiety can be overwhelming, at work, it dissipates. Putting her energy into this side of herself somehow makes it go away for a minute.

“I wish I had a magic or showstopping answer to explain how that happens, but I don’t,” she shares. “I just put the fear aside—I picture myself picking it up and putting it into the back of the fridge. It may seem weird, but whether it’s sending an email to someone, posting something on Instagram, reaching out to a new person, I get so afraid, but I don’t let that build up or dwell in it. I just do it.”

That success translates to the business side of being a makeup artist. It’s not just her talents with the brush and foundation that has gotten her far. It’s her focus. “If I do something, I do it all the way. That’s one of my secrets, which I share with people who are just starting out. Unless you know in your heart that you’re going to go ‘10x,’ as Grant Cardone says, then you’re not even going to make a dent,” Louise shares.

This grit also came from pain. Louise struggled to conceive early on in her marriage (although now she has a beautiful two-year-old daughter), so channeled the frustration into her work. “It’s not always possible for everyone to put every ounce of their being into their job,” she says. “Maybe they can’t, or have lots of children, but I didn’t have kids at that point. I used all my sadness and put it into this.”

Building Her Talent

If you follow Louise on Instagram, you may notice her face is rarely pictured. “I’m a shy person,” she explains. “I needed to figure out how to work with that, because I didn’t want to post my face and life on Instagram. I started doing product reviews and sharing more about my background in the text. People loved that.”

Louise found products by diving right in and experimenting. She’s constantly refining her craft. “As I grow, it’s not necessarily about my skill improving, it’s about my eye and style improving,” she explains. “I think a skill in this industry, any creative industry, is inborn. Then you develop it. I always try new things and, as it works, it pushes me to do more. I’m always exploring and discovering things.”

On her off-time she used to spend hours in stores just trying products. “I always want to try different products that no one else has tried,” she says. “I would go to Ulta and Sephora and just go through the aisles, take my time, touch products and smell them. It helped me understand the makeup in a real, deep sense. I think that’s what makes me different. Every ounce of my being is in this industry. I truly love it.”

She applies the same focus to her clients. “Each person who sits in your chair is a whole world of their own. She has a whole set of experiences, fears, insecurities and desires,” she explains. “It’s nonstop brain activity.”

Louise stresses that you don’t have to—and honestly shouldn’t—put your entire life on social media in order to get big. “That’s absolutely irrelevant to your job,” she says. “It’s an easy way out.” Even with her anxiety and fear, she isn’t afraid to be outspoken about her beliefs. “My biggest trait is authenticity.”

Behind the Scenes

Of course, with any job, there are good days and bad, stressors and disasters. As glamorous as things look in the photos, there is a lot of nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes work. She’s on her feet for 10-hour days, often waking up at the crack of dawn to get to the venue or traveling through snowstorms so the bride isn’t left without a makeup artist.

“You’re also often the peacemaker,” she says. When an argument erupts, she can be the one who helps bring people back together, as an objective third party. “You can put some sense into people.” 

Then, she could spend an hour working on someone’s face, and then they might not like it. Luckily, Louise’s strength comes out there, too. “I’m very strict,” she says. “I say, ‘This is what you asked for and if I have time at the end of the day when everyone else is completely taken care of, we can revisit it.’ It’s often the sisters or cousins of the bride in those cases, not someone who is the main focus of the day.” 

Sometimes she says she misquotes people, which costs her in the long run. “There is so much information in my head at once,” she explains. At any given point, she’s managing the current weddings as well as upcoming bookings coming in. With those, she has to keep on top of them, write down dates and make sure they send the deposit in so she can confirm.

Her husband helps her with the backend, but with all the moving parts, a ball is bound to drop occasionally. “There is no room for ‘bound to happen’ in this industry,” she says. “But it does.”

One time, she double-booked two brides—a horror. “I only realized it a few days before,” she says. “I was freaking out, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what do I do?’” She decided to give her time to the bride who booked her first and very nervously called up the other to explain the situation. “They were upset,” she says. “But they understood that I made a mistake and I was committed to finding someone else to cover.”

In an industry working with so many people, she stresses how much of an impact being understanding can have. “I wish people knew my limitations as an intellectual,” she shares. “I’m a walking, talking miracle because I had everything against me. I’m a human being with feelings. I make mistakes but I try to make them better.”

At the end of the day, she says with all the madness, there is no greater feeling than making a bride feel special on the day of her wedding. “I’m euphoric,” she says. “I often just think, ‘Hashem, what did I do to deserve this?’ Helping a bride is a dream come true.”

Expanding Her Brand

With her makeup services in high demand, Louise actually yearned to do something more. “I love makeup, but it’s a bit limited,” she explains. “I can’t always create and express myself because I do what the client wants. My entire world revolves around creation. It’s like food for my soul.”

She channeled that pent-up energy into designing her headband company, Lily by Lou, which launched in November 2020. Lily was her grandmother’s name and is now her daughter’s English name. The spark came from a difficulty in wearing wigs. “I never felt pretty in them and found them itchy and uncomfortable,” she says. “I wanted to find a way to cover my hair that felt good.”

She created a collection of beautiful headbands that are now seen on heads everywhere—both in person and all over social media. On Instagram, they’re praised for their comfort and chic design. They instantly elevate any outfit — either putting the final touch on a look or standing as the centerpiece.

Louise likes to wear them over a wig or on top of a fall. Being able to wear the headbands over sheitels was a key part of the design (something that doesn’t always work with just any headband). The inspiration, she says, just comes to her. Sometimes it starts with a fabric, but other times it’s just a manifestation of her own creative energy.

Louise says that adding this to her workload was a no-brainer. She believes that with enough hard work, she can do anything. “If I want a new supplier, I’ll sit for hours and research to make it happen,” she says. “I think it comes from when I was in Israel and had no money. If there was something I wanted or needed, I had to figure out how to get it. It gave me this unbelievable grit to just keep pushing.”

She teamed up with her husband, Aaron, on the project, which actually took shape as a result of the coronavirus. He had quit his job and Louise was home for a while, not having any work due to the world being shut down. Not having a job to run to each day is what inspired her to actually start. “We needed goals in our life to wake up for,” she says. He runs the business side, and she focuses on the design. 

Now, with its success and growth, she’s grateful for every up and down. “I look back and feel such pride in myself,” she says. “I earned everything. It’s been such a sacred, special journey—so personal and intense. It makes me feel so close to Hashem, and for that, I am so grateful.”